1.Download VMware Player in your home folder. You’ll have to register before downloading (or search for some alternate download link).Note: if you’re using Google Chrome, the downloaded file will have “.txt” extension – rename the extension to “.bundle”.

2. Now let’s install the required dependencies and run the downloaded VMware .bundle file:

The filename in the commands above may be different, depending on the VMware version you’ve downloaded (at the time I’m writing this post, version 4.0.3 is the latest).

At this point, a window will pop-up – click “Next”, etc.:

3. Patch VMware 4.0.3 to work with Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

Don’t try to run VMware player in Ubuntu 12.04 yet because it won’t work due to the following Virtual Network Device error: “Unable to start services. See log file /tmp/vmware-root/mdconfig-23331.log for details“.

Update: for other versions like VMware Player 4.0.4, edit the “patch-modules_3.2.0.sh” file (from the archive downloaded by the second command above) and change the “plreqver” version to the VMWare Player version you’re using.

The commands above download the patch and run it but if you want, you can also manually download the patch from HERE.

If you’ve had an earlier VMware version installed and used the patch for it, you’ll get an error like this: